Left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu will forgo free agency and return to the Dodgers for the 2019 season after accepting the qualifying offer before Monday’s deadline.

Catcher Yasmani Grandal, on the other hand, declined the qualifying offer and will enter the free-agent market on the heels of a poor postseason. Grandal can still negotiate and re-sign with the Dodgers. But the team will receive a compensatory pick in next year’s draft if he signs with another team.

The $17.9 million qualifying offer represents a large pay raise for the 31-year-old Ryu, who originally signed a six-year, $36 million contract with the Dodgers when he moved from Korea to the major leagues in 2013.

Since then, Ryu has gone 40-28 with a 3.20 ERA in 97 games (96 starts) for the Dodgers, including 7-3 with a 1.97 ERA in 15 regular-season starts this year. But Ryu lost almost two seasons to shoulder and elbow surgeries and has pitched more than 100 innings just once since 2014.

His return adds to the Dodgers’ deep stock of starting pitching. Under contract for 2019 are Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Kenta Maeda and Ryu with Alex Wood, Walker Buehler, Ross Stripling and Caleb Ferguson under team control.

Grandal’s departure, however, highlights the catcher position as an area needing to be addressed this winter.

Assuming Grandal leaves as a free agent, the Dodgers would be in the market for a front-line catcher. Backup Austin Barnes has not demonstrated the ability to fill that role, having regressed badly offensively last season (a .205 batting average and .619 OPS).

“If you look at 2018 for Barnesy it is very out of whack for the rest of his career,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said last week. “So I feel very confident there is a better version in there offensively. And then defensively he is really good and the way he prepares, the relationships with the pitchers are very strong. So a catcher – it’s not just about what they OPS. It’s also how much they help on the run prevention side and Barnesy is really good on that front.”

Friedman blamed Barnes’ offensive regression last year on getting “out of whack mechanically.”

“I will bet on him this winter to diagnose, fix and get himself in a good position going into spring training,” Friedman said.

The Dodgers have a quartet of highly-regarded catching prospects in their farm system – Keibert Ruiz, Will Smith, Connor Wong and Diego Cartaya. None are close to being ready to assume the No. 1 role at the big-league level. Only Smith has advanced beyond Double-A – and he hit .138 in 25 games at Triple-A Oklahoma City.

“He’s someone we’re very high on. We feel there’s real potential with the bat, a chance to be elite behind the plate, really like the way his mind works,” Friedman said of Smith, who spent most of September with the big-league team, getting a hands-on taste of what the Dodgers require of their catchers without being on the active roster.

“(That experience) we feel will really benefit him when he comes up. When that will be, we’re not sure yet. We think he is in really good position to help us at some point next year and feel really good about where he is developmentally.”

That could color the way the Dodgers approach replacing Grandal this winter, allowing them to look for a short-term bridge to the day when Smith or Ruiz is ready to assume the primary position. Wilson Ramos, Martin Maldonado, Kurt Suzuki, Robinson Chirinos and Jonathan Lucroy are among the free-agent catchers this winter. Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto could be available in a trade – though it will take an impressive package to win the bidding for him.

Despite his offensive and defensive struggles in the postseason, Grandal figures to be the top choice among those free-agent catchers. While Friedman said he doesn’t have an explanation for Grandal’s defensive mistakes during this year’s World Series, he said he still considers Grandal an “elite” catcher (largely because of his pitch-framing skills).

“Yes – excluding the six days, whatever that was, where he was less than elite. But, yeah,” Friedman said.

“I think if you go back to ’17 it was as much about Barnes taking it (the starting job during the postseason). Barnes was unbelievable in ’17. You can make the argument that it was much more about him taking it. This year, he (Grandal) went through that period where he struggled. That can happen in May. Unfortunately, it happened in October. … He is a streaky player. But relative to position – it’s really elite. I would prefer kind of a more even-level distribution. But I would also prefer how it has played out to most catchers in the league.”

Bill Plunkett has covered everything from rodeo to Super Bowls to boxing (yeah, I was there the night Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear off) during a career that started far too long ago to mention and eventually brought him to the OC some time last century (1999 actually). He has been covering Major League Baseball for the Orange County Register since 2003, spending time on both the Angels and Dodgers beats.